On Jan. 10, the presidential candidates will attend the last debate before the Iowa caucus. At least, some of them will.
Only two candidates — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley — are set to debate at Drake University five days before the caucus. Former President Donald Trump plans to attend Fox News Channel’s town hall in Des Moines, instead.
CNN will host, and moderators will include Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
Haley has seen her poll numbers increase since the first debate. However, she faced attacks from other candidates in last month’s debate. Plus, Haley tested her support last week by making controversial remarks about the Civil War. After an audience question about the cause of the war, Haley slammed the audience member as a “Democratic plant.”
In next week’s one-on-one debate, Haley can focus on her offense.
DeSantis is out-polling Haley in Iowa, but both of them are running more than 10 points behind Donald Trump in FiveThirtyEight’s poll aggregate.
Both of the debate contestants candidates have slammed Trump for refusing to debate.
“With only three candidates qualifying for the CNN debate, it’s time for Donald Trump to show up,” Haley tweeted. “As the debate stage continues to shrink, it’s getting harder for Donald Trump to hide.”
“He’s not been willing to come here and answer questions,” DeSantis told reporters in Iowa, according to CNN. “He parachutes in for 30, 45-minute, hour speech and then just leaves, rather than listening to Iowans answering questions and doing, I think, what it takes to win.”
Take a look —
With only three candidates qualifying for the CNN debate, it’s time for Donald Trump to show up. As the debate stage continues to shrink, it’s getting harder for Donald Trump to hide.
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) January 2, 2024
Trump, citing his commanding lead, has described the debates as redundant. At his town hall, Trump intends to “focus on the leading issues facing voters ahead of the Iowa Caucus,” according to a press release by Fox News.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie failed to qualify. Entrepreneur-turned-author Vivek Ramaswamy loudly slammed CNN’s invitation, but he was never invited in the first place.
“Forget @CNN’s fake Iowa ‘debate’ on Jan 10 which will be the most boring in modern history,” Ramaswamy tweeted. “We’re doing a live-audience show that night in Des Moines.”
To qualify for CNN’s debate, the candidates needed to reach 10% in three CNN-approved polls of the primary. They can be polling at 10 percent either nationally or in Iowa, but they still needed to reach that mark in at least one poll of “likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers.”
CNN will host two debates in January. The network also invited the candidates for a debate at New England College ahead of New Hampshire’s primary election.
However, CNN caused confusion last month by originally announcing the location as Saint Anselm College, when ABC News was also hosting a debate at the same venue. “I have no idea about anything with any other network,” Levesque told the Associated Press last month, denying any involvement in CNN’s plans.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.